In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel discounts X-Men and Deadpool. DC drops deals on Black Label. Plus, Attack on Titan and Wonderland.
Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?
(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn a commission.)
In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):
- The new releases page is here.
- The “Comics Deals” page is here.
- The Kindle Deals comics page is here.
Paint It Black
The DC Black Label Sale runs through Monday, 11/6.
What is Black Label? Something of a cross between Vertigo and Elseworlds. Stories of DC characters that are… not necessarily in continuity. (We say not necessarily because things like Batman: The Three Jokers might end up in continuity.) A little more on the mature reader side. Sometimes fantasy or horror that has nothing to do with the DCU.
What’s good? An awful lot of it. A few highlights (and yes, Tom King does do some of his best work for this imprint):
- Batman: Reptilian – Liam Sharp / Garth Ennis
- Hellblazer: Rise & Fall – Tom Taylor / Darick Robertson
- The Human Target – Tom King/Greg Smallwood
- Kingdom Come – Mark Waid / Alex Ross
- The Nice House on the Lake – James Tynion IV / Alvaro Martinez Bueno
- Rorschach – Tom King / Jorge Fornés
- Strange Adventures – Tom King / Mitch Gerads / Doc Shaner
- Wonder Woman: Dead Earth – Daniel Warren Johnson
- Wonder Woman: Historia – Kelly Sue DeConnick / Phil Jimenez / Gene Ha / Nicola Scott
We’re not listing the Spurrier/Campbell Hellblazer because only the first volume is on sale. A oversight we disapprove of for a wonderful comic.
Best o’ the best?
If you’re looking for a Vertigo replacement at DC, direct your attention to The Nice House on the Lake. Tynion and Bueno deliver an excellent SF/Horror fusion series about the end of the world. The bestselling horror comic DC’s seen in quite a while, too.
The Human Target by King and Smallwood is a very unique comic. One part hardboiled noir as Christopher Chance tries to figure out who poisoned him before he died. One part loving homage to the Bwa Ha Ha era Justice League. Amazingly the JL cast is mostly in goofy character, despite popping up in a noir. Quite a feat. Well written and you really can’t say enough about Smallwood’s art.
Rorschach by Tom King & Jorge Fornés is even more unusual than The Human Target. It’s a Watchmen sequel that we actually like and don’t think is a cash grab. OK, it’s not so much a sequel as a tale that takes place in the same universe and in the aftermath of the original graphic novel. It’s a detective story about conspiracy, identity, mythology and… Frank Miller? Yes, Frank Miller. It’s a keeper.
Brand X
The Marvel Uncanny X-Men Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 11/6.
It’s a legacy sale, so it’s the Uncanny X-Men core… although this may shorter list than some of the legacy sales. For instance, X-Men wasn’t part of Heroes Reborn, so no relaunch there.
As is our custom, let’s run through the key series included, first:
- Uncanny X-Men ’63-’11 – The original X-Men, the “new” X-Men, Morrison… it’s a long run.
- Uncanny X-Men ’11-’12 – The Kieron Gillen era
- Uncanny X-Men ’13-’15 – The Brian Bendis / Chris Bachalo era (Battle of the Atom fits in with this run as a crossover)
- Uncanny X-Men ’16-’17 – The Cullen Bunn / Greg Land / Ken Lashley era
- Uncanny X-Men ’18-’19 – The Mathew Rosenberg era
And you might be asking yourself, “aren’t there usually more than one X-Men title and don’t they cross over a lot?” Yes, that would be a potential issue… pun intended. Not so much with the Epic Collections and the Masterworks as with the later series, and there are some Event collections in the set.
You should know our general advice right now. There’s a slight preference for the value of Epic Collections over Masterworks collections, but it depends on the exact price point and the Epic Collections sometimes have gaps. That still applies here. The wild card with X-Men is that it can get impenetrable with continuity and all the characters floating around. You can’t always just jump in.
So, recommendations with that in mind.
If you’ve never tried the original X-Men, we’d say go with The Sentinels Live Epic Collection. It’s at the very tail end of the original run that the original X-Men run is at its best: a bit of Jim Steranko and then a Roy Thomas / Neal Adams sequence that ended all too quickly.
For the “new” X-Men, we’re cool with the theory that Giant-Sized X-Men #1 / Uncanny X-Men #94 through #200 is one big arc. That’s where we’d start if we were new. The Epic Collections only take you to #153, at which point you need to start cutting in the Masterworks editions with V. 7 through 12.
For an alternate jumping on point, perhaps the Ed Brubaker era (# to # ) which is collected in three volumes starting with Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.
We assume you already know about the Morrison run.
And if you were looking for the Events that started after #200… well, that’s next.
No, Not the Dirty Harry Film
The Marvel Deadpool Vs. the Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 11/6.
Deadpool has always had a lot of fairly short run titles swapping around at any given time, this is a collection of those secondary titles.
The longest running of the set is Deadpool & Cable, Fabian Nicieza and Patrick Zircher being the team most associated with it. Amusingly, the monthly comic was called Cable & Deadpool, but the character popularity has flipped since then.
Spider-Man / Deadpool also ran 50 issues. Joe Kelly / Ed McGuinness was the early creative team with Robbie Thompson / Chris Bachalo tagging in later.
Deadpool Corps maybe of heightened interest with Rob Liefeld joining writing Victor Gischler for it.
Attaaaaaaack of the Killer Tomatoes
The Kodansha Attack on Titan Sale runs through Monday, 11/13.
By cosmic coincidence, this is what we’ve been reading here at the Tower of Cheap. 2/3 of the way through V. 33 as this is being typed.
Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama is a genre-bender and a half. It starts out as more of a horror story with people living inside a barrier of giant walls, besieged by “Titans.” Mindless giants who roam around eating people. And since the technology level in this world is roughly ~1920, there’s a touch of steampunk around the edges. Then some Titans appear who aren’t mindless. As the heroes try to solve the mystery of the Titans, it turns into a political conspiracy. Then the applecart gets turned over and there’s more political conspiracy on a wider scale, Titans as weapons of mass destruction and ethnic cleansings. This one really is something else and is operating on a very wide scale as it wraps up. It goes to some very dark places and doesn’t really back away from them, either.
There are also several spin-offs in the sale.
- Attack on Titan: Before the Fall
- Attack on Titan: No Regrets
- Attack on Titan: Lost Girls
- Attack on Titan: Junior High
- Attack on Titan: The Harsh Mistress of the City
- Spoof on Titan
You’re a Wonder
The Zenescope Return to Wonderland Digital Sale runs through Wednesday, 11/22.
Zenescope’s Wonderland titles were their buzziest titles when Raven Gregory was writing them.
The original trilogy was
Beyond that (pun intended)
Tales from Wonderland will fit in-between various volumes and the rough order of the rest is:
- Alice in Wonderland
- Call of Wonderland
- Wonderland (The on-going title)
- Madness of Wonderland
- Down The Rabbit Hole
- Through The Looking Glass
- Asylum
- Clash of Queens
- White Queen: Age of Darkness
Additionally, we think the unlisted Dark Horse sale from last week is still in effect, but we’re unsure for how much longer.
Still on Sale
- The Kodansha TBT: Princess Resurrection Sale runs through Wednesday, 11/1
- Zenescope’s Tales of Terror Halloween Sale runs through Sunday, 11/5